Ho-ho-hum Christmas sales are about what retailers expected

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, January 4, 2006

NEW YORK -- Although the nation's retailers didn't get their hoped-for sales blitz the week after Christmas, they're still expected to generally meet their modest holiday sales forecasts.

According to the International Council of Shopping Centers-UBS sales tally released Wednesday, sales declined 0.8 percent for the week ended Saturday compared with the previous week and rose 2.9 percent compared with the same year-ago period.

The tally is based on same-store sales, or sales at stores opened at least a year, which are considered the best measure of a retailer's health.

Michael Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers, said that Dec. 26 was very strong, but sales deteriorated after that.

Still, Niemira noted that same-store sales for December and for the November-December period are still on track to meet a modest growth forecast of 3 percent to 3.5 percent.

According to ShopperTrak RCT Corp., which tracks retail sales at more than 40,000 mall-based stores, sales slipped 2 percent for the week ended Saturday compared with the same period a year ago. The company said overall December sales met its forecast of a 4.2 percent increase.

The Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index, which monitors same-store sales of 9,000 retail units, reported that sales rose 2.6 percent for the final week of December compared with the same year-ago period, resulting in a 3.4 percent gain for the month. That was slightly below the 3.8 percent forecast.

According to Catlin Levis, an analyst at Redbook Research Inc., "many shoppers held on to their gift cards for later use."

The nation's retailers are to report final same-store sales results today.